~ creating worlds with words

I have had this blog now for almost half a year, and as you can see, very little has changed with it. I last reported that I had entered NaNoWriMo for the second time, and after a gruelling ten days, I won for the second time. I had promised to write some updates logging my progress, but unfortunately that never materialised. Why? This post will explain.

I have a horrible concern, for both this blog and for my non – fiction sister blog, ‘Residual Knowledge’, and I want to share that concern and hopefully find some way of resolving the issue, so that I get more readers and you get more entries!

The concern is this: how dangerous is it to post original work and ideas that are unpublished (and therefore unprotected) into a Blog? I am certainly not cut short when it comes to ideas for either fiction or non fiction, but I am too afraid of my original ideas and work being stolen. Exactly how much protection does one’s work get when it appears in a blog like this, from someone who is currently unpublished and unknown, (and in my opinion, extremely vulnerable to plagiarism.)

If a solution is not found to this problem, this blog and its sister will never progress, which is extremely saddening for a beginning writer like myself.

If anyone is able to assist me in addressing this issue, then I will be most grateful, and as a result there will be alot more material on both of my blogs for my readers to enjoy. If not, it will be little more than a diary-like non entity; and will probably be cancelled in the near future.

In a nutshell, it is the National Novel Writing Month Competition. To win, write 50,000 words of a novel between the 1st and 30th of November. What do you win? the honour of owning a completed or partially completed novel, the likes of which you never thought possible (plus a certificate and T Shirt, for those who are interested!)

Last year, I participated in my first ever NaNo entry, and won, a few days ahead of schedule, with 50,200 words or so of my debut novel, Swansong. Those frantically written fifty thousand words carried my novel from its uncertain beginning through to its shocking middle. Even though I did not return to it until my internet – less summer of 2012, the fact that I got the main bulk of the novel down within a month gacve me the drive and confidence I needed in order to actually complete it. I had not completed a full novel sized story since 2000, and often wondered whether it was possible for me to reach that goal again.

This November, I have decided to throw caution to the wind yet again, and I entered my follow up novel, Sustain the Shadow, into the competition. While I possessed little confidence for Swansong last year, I possess even less confidence this year for a story that only came to me in April this year and does not possess any of the strength that Swansong (idea spawned in 2009) had previously. However, I still went ahead with my planning and chapter guide, and true to form, wrote my first 2,000 words this morning, within about 3 hours.

Some people (they really must have ridiculous strength!) have already written far more than that. I prefer not to. Why? I don’t like to push myself too hard, and burn out my imagination before the competition has truly gotten started. If I got hell for leather too soon, I run out of fire, drive, or even ideas(!) The point I am trying to make (or making a mess of putting across!) is that NaNo might be a time limited competition, but it is not a race for one person against another! write to your own limits, and don’t burn yourself out. Everyone has their own individual strategy, and whether that involves writing heavy amounts of words per day, or spacing out your writing over the course of the month, it doesn’t matter. The point of NaNo is to give you the impetus to get that story out of your head and onto paper (or computer screen!)

throughout the month (patience and inspiration pending!) I will give as many updates on the progress of my entry, ‘Sustain the Shadow’ as I can possibly manage, providing it doesn’t kill me in the process! and to all of you, whatever your strategy, if you are taking part in NaNo as a beginner or seasoned veteran, best of luck!

my last post is dated as July 2012….the sign of a true Blog slacker?? possibly, but in this case, no.

Since that fateful day(!) when I left my last post, I lost my beloved internet connection for not one but two months. Since then, I have been powering away at research and procrastination alike, but on the plus, I managed to finish Swansong’s first ever draft!!!

Hopefully now the hardest part of my debut is over, I can concentrate on bringing some life into both of my Blogs, while being able to plump up the research for my follow up novel (more on that later!) and have some time for procrastination….. (I didn’t just say that, really!)

Otherwise, as it is now November 1st and my second novel and National Novel Writing Month entry is underway, I will try to keep up to date by bringing in NaNo reports as my follow up progresses, such as teaser excerpts, research snippets, etc etc.

I have been writing stories since, well, forever. So, I have a fair bit of fiction work behind me or in progress. Some stories I only wrote for school projects. Some I wrote for a personal challenge. Lots I have scrapped. Below is a chronology of my works (that firstly survived!) and are still ongoing:

The big issue with all of these works is that no one apart from myself and a few people close to me know they exist. With the exceptions of the competition successes of Swansong and He Saw in Colour, sharing my work up until now has been anathema to me, largely due to my fear of plagiarism. However, to make any form of progress in writing, the secrets of my work have to be revealed eventually.

in order to bring you all up to date, I will give each of them a little introductory post of their own (flashfic will be all together) a bit later on, detailing some of their main features, main inspiration and research, while not giving away too much of their content!!! (well, I wouldn’t want to spoil it for you, would I??) Hopefully, these may give some small insight to the way in which my fiction writing mind works.

I am a budding aspirant author with an eye for detail; recently graduated from a Masters Degree in Mediaeval History and currently working on my debut novel; as well as setting up a business as a full time Freelance Writer, writing under the pseudonym M. A. Capelsion.

As my Freelance Writing Services venture and Novel writing begin to blossom, I hope to give you a little insight into the kind of writing work I produce and some of the thoughts and research that goes into the process of my work.

interested?? I hope so.

This blog will draw you into the weird world of my fiction writing, specialising in supernatural horror and suspense, psychological horror and dark fantasy, often set in various periods of history, but also hoping to expand my genres as I gain experience in the writing world.

If you wish to also see previews and snippets of my non fiction works and thoughts, please visit residualknowledge.wordpress.com.